As our national legislature debases itself, we turn our attention to a more local effort to prevent a particular debasement of our state Legislature.

It’s rooted in the Minnesota Constitution, right here in Article IV:

Sec. 17. Laws to embrace only one subject.No law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.

The problem, as state government gets more complicated and bigger, is that so do the big, fat, opaque “omnibus” bills that have broad subjects like “education” and “transportation” and contain everything from soup to nuts to swapped horses and magic cloaks of unaccountability.

Every year there are headlines and gnashing of teeth about thousand-page bundles of appropriations and decisions that drop on the laps of bleary-eyed legislators in last frenzied moments of the legislative session.

And then it happens again.

Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, who has consistently argued on behalf of the “single-subject rule,” is once again working to raise the profile of the issue and build public pressure to drive the deal-makers back toward constitutional territory.

He is to be commended for that.

Even though most everybody agrees that ominbus omniverousness has gone too far, the incentives to persist in it remain strong. Legislating is deal-making, and it’s easier to make deals in the shadows. When it comes to accountability, every legislator wants some room to maneuver, and big, fat omnibus bills leave room for most anybody to stand most anywhere. Plus, they grease the skids for all kinds of things what would have trouble moving were they considered alone, which is satisfying to special interests from all around the political spectrum.

Anybody who values transparency, accountability and clarity in state government can help the cause by pressing their own legislators and candidates who would replace them to pledge new allegiance to the single-subject rule.

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